SAINTS coach Kristian Woolf has explained the Covid situation at the club which led to the past two Super League games being postponed.

He explained, in a Q&A with the St Helens Star, what the situation is currently and what he would like to see going forward for the remainder of the season.

After winning the Challenge Cup, Woolf explained that the club was excited about parading the trophy in front of their home fans - but those plans were scuppered due to a number of positive Covid tests - and the rules around self-isolation.

Woolf said: "We were really looking forward to the game after the Challenge Cup – it was a home game and we were expecting a bumper crowd.

"It was our opportunity to come back in front of our fans and play in front of them after achieving something special.

"We realise although a lot of fans were able to get to Wembley, there were a lot who couldn’t as well.

St Helens Star:

"One thing we did discuss as a team was that your best teams, your champion teams, and that is exactly what our blokes are, back up successfully after big games.

"That was certainly our aim.

"To come out of that game and have the disruption of Covid – and the amount of infection that we have unfortunately had within the group stemming directly from that game has been very disruptive and disappointing.

"But in these times it is what it is unfortunately. We have got to get over it now and hope to be back in training on Thursday as a group – and then get ready for Hull FC on Monday."

St Helens Star:

MC: This is the first real outbreak at the club - it must be disappointing that has come up now and impacted on this part of the season.

KW: Our blokes have been extremely disciplined for 18 months we have been dealing with Covid. As a team we have not had the negative influence that some other teams have had.

That is all down to the players and the policies put in place to protect the players.

At the end of the day players need to make the sacrifice to what they are doing outside of the club, more so than inside the club. That is why we have been able to avoid those issues.

Unfortunately – from that one game – if you look at the impact it has had on both teams there has been some transfer of the infection from within that game and what happens is when we are all on buses travelling home, training together.

Once those positive cases were detected after our open top bus trip it meant that anyone who was deemed a close contact also needs to stand down for 10 days.

When we have blown out to eight or nine infections (positive tests), among players and staff, within the group that means that you are standing down a lot of people. That is just the situation we have had to face.

MC: Will that rule out players for the Hull FC game?

KW: We had another round of testing today (Tuesday) and provided we have no more positive cases then we can be back at training on Thursday. The guys deemed close contacts – provided they are negative as of today (Tuesday) then they will be able to come back on Thursday and train and prepare for Hull FC.

Any of the guys who have contracted the virus – it means unfortunately they would miss that game as well.

They will – in most cases – be back and ready for Catalans. In some cases, it will not be until the week after. It is quite a big impact unfortunately.

MC: This is one of the dangers of having games clustered together in a congested period?

KW: It is a really difficult situation to navigate going forward. Us, and all teams, are going to have to be extremely disciplined in what we do.

While the rest of the country opens up and learns to live with Covid, our rulings around close contact and return to play haven’t changed at this stage.

They are essentially the rules that make it difficult to get a team on the field every week.

If you get eight or nine cases and the majority of your squad are deemed close contacts then you can’t put a team on the field and that is the situation we have faced.

It is something that everyone has to play their part in to make sure we can finish the season.

That is from a player and staff point of view but there are a couple of rules we can look at that haven’t changed since we came back from Covid in August last year – and most other things have changed.

St Helens Star:

MC: What rules would you like to see change?

KW: We have to look at what we do with close contacts particularly with so many having been exposed or been vaccinated.

We can also look at the mandatory time to return to play after having Covid infection.

Particularly when you have such a variation – with some players having absolutely no symptoms – but some obviously do. That is something we can have a look at.

If you have tested positive it is currently 17 days until you can play again and that can rule you out for three or four games if it is a congested period.

St Helens Star:

MC: Salford have recently announced their next two games are off, this seems to be a weekly occurrence now. Is there a concern that this could impact on the integrity of the competition?

KW: It is going to affect the table and the comp, there is no doubt about that.

We had a similar scenario last year and a big variance in how many games teams had played compared to others.

The two best teams still made it to the Grand Final and that was shown in the performances of the teams in the Grand Final.

With Covid about I don’t think we are going to get equality in terms of everyone playing the same number of games.

We need to be careful – we are not going to catch up all the games that we have missed and we are going to have to work extremely hard to get through the games we have in front of us.

That is what our focus should be on and the points percentage is not perfect but I don’t think there’s a better alternative either. I can’t think of one.

Already – we have just over seven weeks left of the competition and every team is playing somewhere between 9-11 games in that period.

What we are asking our players to do is probably borderline unreasonable and we should not be adding to it.